132 ON THE CORPUS LUTEUM. 



The appearances observed upon examining a portion of yelk and a portion of corpus 

 luteum are so similar that it would be difficult, I think, to discriminate between them, but 

 for the exception, that along with the vitellary corpuscles and granules and globules of 

 the yellow body, there will be found flocks of laminated cellular tela, blood-discs, and other 

 detritus of the organ, destroyed by the compressor. 



The transparent corpuscles transmit a yellow light, whether observed singly, or in 

 clusters, or acervuli. 



The same is true of the corpuscles of the yelk. 



On crushing a bit of corpus luteum with the compressorium, there escapes much granular 

 matter that accurately resembles the granules of the granular membrane, the proligerous 

 disc or retinacula of the Graafian follicle. This is the case when great precaution has 

 been used in procuring the bit from the outer superficies of the corpus luteum; avoiding 

 to take any portion that might have touched the inner superficies of the crypt left by the 

 escape of the ovulum. 



The similarity in the appearance leads me to suppose an identity of nature and origin. 



I think no person accustomed to the use of the microscope could detect any difference 

 between the molecules pressed out of a bit of corpus luteum, and those that escape from a 

 crushed mammiferous ovule, or the yelk of an egg, excepting the debris or detritus before 

 mentioned, and which is referrible to the destructive power of the compressorium. 



I have so many times examined the mammiferous ovulum that I suppose myself quite 

 competent to compare its contents with those of the corpus luteum, and with common 

 yelk. 



I hope I am entitled to say, that the colouring matter and the chief constituent bulk of 

 a corpus luteum, is a true vitellary matter, deposited outside of the inner concentric 

 spherule, or ovisac of the Graafian follicle. 



For the proof of the truth of this opinion I refer to the future observations of the 

 micrographers, who will be able to confirm or to confute my statement. 



There is not, so far as I know, any author who has taken this view of the constitution 

 of the corpus luteum — though that substance has been the fruitful topic of elaborate 

 research and hypothesis, owing to the interest connected with its being, both in a phy- 

 siological and medico-legal relation. 



Previous to the year 1825, when John Evangelista Purkinje, of Breslau, discovered the 

 germinal vesicle of the unfoecundated egg; to the year 1827, when Ch. Ern. V. Baer 

 detected the mammal ovum, with its germinal vesicle; and the year 1830, when Rudolph 

 Wagner ascertained the existence of the Kcim feck, or macula germinativa, all notions 

 and opinions on the mammal ovum may be set down as naught — since the opinions of 

 the learned arc now based on the discoveries just mentioned; which have led on a com- 

 plete revolution in many most important relations of physiological action, and therapeuti- 

 cal indication and treatment. 



It would be bootless, therefore, to ask what the writers of an earlier date than 1825, 

 may have supposed upon this subject. 



Dr. Carpenter, John Muller, Thomas Schwann, Ilcnlc, and Huschkc have not hinted 

 at the vitellary nature of the yellow body. 



